Time After Time
by Cis100
Summary: [EU-OT-PT Crossover] Anakin watches his family tear itself apart and copes with the fact that there is nothing he can do about it.


**AN: I was challenged to do this as a tribute Expanded Universe and a sort of kick in the crotch to those who killed it. If you don't like it, that's fine – but I think I fulfilled the challenge.**

**Time After Time**

* * *

That foolish boy – that complete and total imbecile.

Had the boy learned nothing in his life? Never trust the Dark Side and those who revel in it – bad things happened to good people on every single occasion, and now Jacen Solo would fall victim to its seduction, just as I had, several decades prior to this. Watching my corrupted grandson, I felt nothing but sadness, shame and guilt over his choices and the justification of his choices and how he had gone about in falling. However, that was swept away with unbridled anger and rage at his false, manipulative comforting that he was providing towards Luke's son – and in the presence of his death mother no less. The boy had the gall to comfort young Ben only hours after he murdered the boy's mother – and it irked me to no end that there was nothing that I could about it, all I could do was let events play out and hope for the best, hope that my family overcame this betrayal. Jacen needed to be stopped, he needed to be stopped before he literally undid decades of Luke and Leia's work to rebuild the galaxy from the state that I had left it in. He needed to be stopped before the sacrifice of my life meant nothing. He needed to be stopped before he drove the galaxy into a darkness that it could not possibly survive once again.

Mara Jade, despite our differences, was a good woman in the end and I hoped that she found some peace amongst us until it was Luke's time to join with the Force.

"You cannot help them," Obi-Wan Kenobi's wizened voice said from beside me, his essence seeming to appear out of thin air. "This was Jacen's destiny – sooner or later, he was meant to do this, and he was meant to be stopped."

I scowled and turned to glare at the old man, "It still does not relieve me of my guilt, when I fell to the Dark Side I fear that I put a curse on my family, it isn't fair that they have to continue to pay for my mistakes."

"True, your… alter-ego might have had a role to play in Jacen 's final fall," Obi-Wan began carefully after receiving a glare from me, "But it was nothing you did."

"That witch used me to manipulate my grandson into betraying the family," I growled, cursing Lumiya to the farthest and darkest pits of hell within my mind, "Now I have to watch them fight him, and possibly kill him."

Watching Obi-Wan stroke his beard, I felt the anger return again – it had been years, decades since we had made peace with each other, but still – sometimes, he really got to me. After all, what could he possibly say to calm me with in this damned situation? When I looked into the future, and the possible futures that were to come, I saw nothing but death in my family. In one future, Jacen kills Luke, his mother, his father and his sister – exterminates the Jedi, with far more creative and destructive methods then anything I could have ever dreamed of and turns his cousin into his apprentice. Several decades on, the hidden Sith, in the further unknown regions of the galaxy emerge and the galaxy is torn apart from the ensuing war that envelopes the galaxy. Wherever Sith went, death, destruction and subterfuge followed – but when personally waged war, things got bloody and they got bloody very quickly. If Jacen won, this would be the final fate of billions of sentient beings.

"You have seen the other futures Anakin," Obi-Wan commented from my right as the image I was watching contorted into a chase between two unknown ships, "Luke will need to be cautious, but he can avoid the future you have seen."

"Either way it involves my grandson killing my family, or my family killing my grandson – there's nothing you can say that will ever make that okay," I scowled petulantly and folded my arms over my chest.

"Watch," Obi-Wan instructed as the image in front of us rippled again and I felt my breath leave me.

All around us, the Force vibrated in apprehension as Lumiya emerged from the living… yes, living, ship and Luke emerged from his fighter. Luke radiated power in the Force and normally, he radiated light and was the beacon for it across the entire galaxy, but now – now he was radiating something else entirely, something that frightened me to my core. With the death of his wife, Luke's control over his emotions had been shattered and now I had the profound displeasure of seeing the very thing that the Emperor, decades prior had seen in my soon. While I had been a literal creation of the Force, Luke was the very personification of the Light Side of the Force and the heir to my raw power if there ever was one. His normally masterful control was shattered from time and it revealed the true beast that his power could be made into with the right manipulations – with his swirling torrent of anger, rage, sadness and the need for revenge, Luke made for a terrifyingly twisted image.

"Luke, no!" I shouted as he beheaded Lumiya in one merciless and clean swing of his lightsaber.

The Force shuddered with the actions of the Grand Jedi Master and the future seemed to grow a little darker – if Luke fell, he would destroy everything – so much more than Jacen ever could. Whereas Jacen had his Solo blood diluting his potency in the Force, Luke was my son – the action of my conception and my birth was the will of the Force itself and I was the strongest Force user to ever live and he seemed to inherit my power. The future was hanging by a thread and I could only hope that Luke could see the danger in his actions now, before it was too late and remove himself from the task of destroying Jacen. So much death and so much destruction would be rained upon the galaxy if both Jacen and Luke fell to the Dark Side.

"Do not fear Anakin," Obi-Wan replied with a pat on my shoulder, "Luke is smart boy."

I could only hope.


End file.
